On November 18, 1957, Yayoi Kusama left her homeland of Japan for America on a plane carrying just three other people: two American GIs and a Japanese war bride. Aged 27, her luggage consisted of 60 silk kimonos and 2,000 drawings and paintings.
Now 95, Kusama, also known as “the princess of polka dots”, has just surpassed David Hockney to become the world’s top-selling contemporary artist.
Fascinated by dots and known for her psychedelic art installations involving giant pumpkins and “infinity rooms” made of mirrors, she made $80.9 million at auction last year. The sum comprised sales of 51 lots of work made after 2000.
Kusama is obsessed with dots, as demonstrated by her 2019 installation The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe
OLI SCARFF/AFP
“I live for my art. That is the only thing I do and I have nothing else to do but
